Corresponding implantable therapy devices are basically known. They are usually adapted to detect electrical signals from the heart and to deliver electrical pulses to a heart. A corresponding detection unit for the electrical signals can be connected for that purpose to an electrode line which leads into a ventricle and/or an atrium of the heart.
Such an electrode line can be designed in known manner for uni-, bi- or multi-polar recording of electrical signals from the heart and for corresponding delivery of therapeutic current pulses to the heart. For example bipolar electrode lines are suitable for recording electrical signals from the heart, which electrode lines can be connected together with the detection unit in such a way that the detected signals are recorded in unipolar or bipolar mode. For the delivery of stimulation or defibrillation pulses to a heart, a therapy device of that kind usually includes a stimulation unit. The detection unit and the stimulation unit of such an implant are usually connected together by way of a control which controls the delivery of pulses to the heart in dependence on the electrical parameters picked up from the heart and possibly further parameters. Such further parameters, in the case of a rate-adaptive cardiac pacemaker, can be characteristic of the physiological demand of a patient.
For treating tachyarrhythmias, it is particularly known to implement an analysis of the heart rate variability. In accordance with U.S. Pat. No 5,749,900 a corresponding arrangement responds to a drop in the variability of the heart rate. Other arrangements for in part complicated and expensive analysis of a plurality of parameters are known for example from U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,967,995 and 6,115,627.
Suitable prediction of tachyarrhythmias is of interest in particular for implantable therapy devices in order for example to be able to trigger in good time preventive or prophylactic therapies.
The object of the present invention is to provide an arrangement for predicting tachyarrhythmia, which as far as possible complies with the above-indicated demands.